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portion of our subject, in a manner more satisfactory to our readers, than by giving a paragraph from the able and lucid exposition of the state of the revenue in some of the provinces of the Bengal Presidency, contained in the money article of the Times of the 12th of May last. (1846).

"Some very copious information respecting the finances of the lower division of the Bengal Presidency has been furnished by the last arrival from India. The great sources of revenue in the Lower Provinces, which embrace the Soobahs, of Bengal and Behar, and the districts of Cuttack, are six in number— namely, the land revenue, the excise on spirits, the stamps, the salt, the opium monopoly and the customs. The receipts for the land revenue, in the financial year 1844-45, are stated at 3,71,00,000 rupees. The amount in the year 1841-42 was about the same, but more than an eighth of it consisted of the arrears of former years. For the last four years the income from this source has varied very little, and the permanent rent-roll is assumed to be about 3,70,00,000 rupees,

the revenues of these provinces never exceeded two millions and a half. It is important to keep the eye steadily fixed on the fact, that all this stupendous improvement is owing to the measure of giving the Viceroyal family money enough for the purposes of amusement, for the Harem and the Menagerie, and assuming the entire control of the administration ourselves."-Calcutta Paper. (1846).

which is about £500,000 sterling more than it was sixteen years ago. At the same time the expenses in collecting this revenue have been greatly diminished. The excise on spirits, commonly called the 'abkaree,' was more productive in the last three years, than during any previous period, having risen to 23,69,000 rupees from 21,70,000 rupees, the amount in 1841-42; the cost of collection having been also diminished. Stamps have not fluctuated, but the salt revenue, from some unaccountable cause, has steadily and progressively decreased. The profits of the opium monopoly, on the other hand, have steadily and progressively advanced from the year when Commissioner Lin accomplished his celebrated work of confiscation and destruction, which has resulted in giving the Chinese a keener appetite for the drug. In 1837-38, two years before that bold act, the profits had risen to the sum of 143 lacs of rupees, or nearly £1,500,000 sterling. The Chinese Commissioner at once reduced the receipts from this branch of revenue to £1,000,000 sterling, but since the settlement of the Chinese affair, a re-action has commenced, and last year the amount of revenue was above £1,750,000 sterling. The customs' revenue gradually increases. In the year 1836-37, the first since the abolition of the transit duties, the receipts were 36,04,000 rupees, and in 1844-45, they were 66,41,000 rupees, with less cost of collection. The receipts generally, 1844-45, amount

to 9,77,86,119 rupees, and the expenditure to 3,59,80,958 rupees.

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* If we assume two millions sterling as the amount chargeable on the revenue for troops, home department, &c., &c., there will remain, as formerly stated, a surplus of income over expenditure of four millions sterling. These two provinces of Bengal and Behar, which are by far the most opulent and productive in our possession, thus furnish nearly one half the income of the whole British Empire in India; and all the resources by which that Empire has been extended, consolidated and improved. The maintenance of our dominion in the East, and the encouragement of those grand and useful undertakings which are necessary to the improvement of the Empire, depend almost entirely on maintaining unimpaired the revenues which are derived from the provinces under the Governor of Bengal."-Calcutta Paper. (1846).

E

Note to Second Edition. (1846).

THE first edition of this little work had passed through the press before the publication of the Report of the Railway Commission, composed of Mr. Simons, C.E., and Captains Boileau and Western, Bengal Engineers, and prior to its perusal by the writer; and there does not appear to be, after attentive consideration of that official document, any reason for withdrawing, or modifying, any opinion expressed or conclusion arrived at, in those portions of the text, which described the merits or demerits of particular projects, or which had reference to the proper mode of introducing railroads into India, with the view ultimately of establishing an efficient and comprehensive system. The Report does not apply to the other sections of this pamphlet.

EAST INDIAN RAILWAY,

FROM

CALCUTTA TO MIRZAPORE.*

THIS great trunk line, which is destined ultimately to connect the seat of the supreme government with its most distant provinces, will, it is understood, commence at or near Calcutta (most probably at Howrah, on the opposite bank of the Hooghly), and proceed by Burdwan, through the hilly country, and crossing the Soane river, terminate, for the present, at Mirzapore.

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